Instagram Just Got A Lot More Local With Place Search

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With over 300 million monthly interactive users, Instagram has become one of the most prominent and interactive social apps for users. But its high level of real-time content and visual appeal has made brand ads no easy task: a brand would need a significant budget to spread its message to reach targeted users in real time.

Users approach Instagram as a referential destination- something to look to for inspiration, tips and finding out the newest, most interesting spots to visit. And while users have been able to tag their location for quite some time, the local opportunity for brand recognition has just grown significantly.

Instagram announced this morning that it is taking a hyperlocal approach to bringing relevant content to users through an option called Place Search. An expansion of its ‘explore,’ function, this will bring location relevance to the forefront for users and put brands in the limelight if they take advantage of this update now.

Instagram recognizes Local as a way satisfy user intent. “With the new Places Search, you can now peer in at just about any location on earth and the new Top search lets you search across people, places and tags all at once.”

Because the focus on Instagram’s location API is growing stronger, Place Search will be the best way for your brand to become a lot more regionally relevant on social media. For users, geo-tagging is an incentive to get more visibility. And brands should be ready to attach their location data to user influence to drive visibility as well. Take advantage of this opportunity before the competition by first ensuring that your location data is consistent, correct and accurate. If you have a variety of locations in trending areas, your data will become more actionable and direct with mobile searchers on the app.

In our recent Brand Battle, we compared social-local engagement between two popular movie theater chains.

Who won: AMC or Regal? Read the social engagement breakdown on StreetFight to find out.